Revolutionary Europe, 1789-1815

by H. Morse Stephens

Armistice of Pleswitz. 3d June 1813.

In the spring of 1813 Napoleon started for Germany to face the new coalition. His Westphalian, Bavarian, and Saxon allies were still true to him and increased their contingents. He called to his assistance the old soldiers who were employed in the garrisons of Holland and Northern Germany, and he raised a large number of fresh conscripts, who, in spite of their youth and inexperience, were at once directed upon Germany. At the head of 250,000 men, eventually increased to 300,000, he invaded Saxony. He defeated Wittgenstein at Lutzen or Gross Görschen on the 2d of May, at which battle his friend, Marshal Bessières was killed, and Scharnhorst was mortally wounded, and reoccupied Saxony. He defeated the whole of the allied army of Silesia at Bautzen on the 20th of May, and established his headquarters at Dresden. Meanwhile Vandamme had recaptured Hamburg, and, after placing it in a state of defence, joined the Emperor in Saxony. After these vigorous blows both sides desired a rest, and on the 3d of June the Armistice of Pleswitz was signed, and it was agreed that a congress should be held at Prague to consider if terms of peace could not be arranged. The important point to be decided at Prague was the position to be adopted by Austria; and both sides prepared to offer a high price for her active assistance, for her intervention would probably settle the result of the war. Napoleon trusted that his father-in-law, the Emperor Francis, would not abandon him, and counted upon the assistance of an Austrian army. He relied also upon the hereditary hatred of Austria for Prussia, and promised his father-in-law, as the price of his active assistance, not only the restoration of the Illyrian provinces, but of the whole of Silesia, which Frederick the Great had torn from Maria Theresa. Napoleon was even sanguine enough to count upon the former friendship which the Emperor Alexander had felt for him, and he hoped that the invasion of Russia would be forgiven if he guaranteed the possession of the whole of Poland. The country which would be sacrificed by these arrangements was Prussia. Napoleon projected the entire extinction of the Prussian kingdom, and suggested that the kingdom of Westphalia should be extended to the Oder. That he should venture to offer such terms showed how entirely Napoleon misunderstood his position. The Emperor Francis, although his daughter was Napoleon’s wife, could not forget the humiliations that Austria had undergone, and allowed his feelings as an Austrian to outweigh his sentiments as a father. The Emperor Alexander had been entirely cured by the invasion of Russia of his former infatuation, and now distrusted the French Emperor as much as he had formerly believed in him; he had struck up an intimacy with the King of Prussia, and had promised him his restoration to the whole of his dominions.

Convention of Reichenbach. 17th June 1813.

Meanwhile the rulers of Austria, Russia, and Prussia signed a treaty at Reichenbach on 17th June 1813, by which Austria assumed the position of a mediator and promised to declare war against France, if the conditions of peace, which she should offer, were rejected. In return for this attitude, Austria was given a free hand to negotiate with the South German States, and the idea of rousing a national German feeling against France, which was strongly advocated by Stein, was abandoned. Metternich had no liking for the national idea; it seemed to him to bear the imprint of the spirit of the French Revolution, and could only end in disaster to Austria. The rising of Prussia had indeed been a success, but if it spread through Germany, it might end in a united Germany with Prussia at its head, and the consequent depreciation of the Austrian power. The example of Spain, which Stein and patriotic Germans pointed to, seemed to cut in two ways; if, on the one hand, it had raised a people in arms against Napoleon, on the other it had encouraged revolutionary ideas. Both the Emperor Alexander and King Frederick William felt the weight of these arguments, and the conception of the war changed from a national uprising to a coalition of the usual type. Under these circumstances, Napoleon’s propositions were ignored, and proposals were made to him on the other hand that he should be content with the natural limits of France, namely, the Rhine and the Alps; that he should restore the Bourbons to Spain and the independence of Holland; that he should abandon his position as head of the Confederation of the Rhine and allow the Pope to return to Rome. Murat was to remain at Naples, and Jerome on the throne of Westphalia, and the terms offered were by no means unfavourable to France, though perhaps hardly justified by the military position of the allies. Metternich, who perceived that Austria held the key to the position, brought these terms to Napoleon’s headquarters at Dresden, and informed the Emperor that if they were not accepted, Austria would join the coalition against him.

Austria declares war.

Napoleon refused with scorn; Castlereagh, through the English ambassador, Lord Aberdeen, promised large subsidies to Austria; and on the 1st of August 1813, the Emperor of Austria promised definitely to join the allies with 200,000 men if Napoleon refused to accept the terms offered to him. The Congress met at Prague. Caulaincourt, the French plenipotentiary, stated that he had no power to accept the terms offered by Francis, and Austria, on the 12th of August, declared war against France. On the 14th of August, when it was too late, Napoleon declared his acceptance of the terms, and received the answer that the whole matter must be referred to the allied monarchs. War in fact was inevitable, and the Armistice of Pleswitz was at an end.

Second Campaign of 1813 in Germany.

The intervention of Austria not only deprived Napoleon of an expected ally, but endangered his military position in Saxony, as a strong Austrian army was being concentrated in Bohemia under the command of Prince Charles von Schwartzenberg. Nevertheless the French Emperor refused to retire, and prepared at the head of 300,000 men to make face against the allies in spite of their great superiority in number. The plan of campaign of the allies was drawn up by Moreau, who had been induced to leave America and give the advantage of his advice to the Czar of Russia. There was also upon the staff of the Russian army one of the ablest strategists in Europe who, like Moreau, had formerly been an officer in the French army, General Jomini. The plan was to direct an army from the north, of Prussians, Russians and Swedes, under Bülow, Chernishev, and Bernadotte, an army from the east of Russians, called the Army of Poland, which was being formed under Benningsen, an army from Silesia, of Prussians under Blücher, and Russians under Wittgenstein, and finally an army of Austrians under Schwartzenberg, assisted by the Russian main army of Barclay de Tolly, and the Russian Imperial Guard under the Grand Duke Constantine, upon Dresden. But Napoleon with his accustomed rapidity of action determined to strike first, and he detached three corps under Oudinot, Macdonald and Vandamme, against Bernadotte, Blücher, and Schwartzenberg; Benningsen was too far in the rear to be dangerous. Oudinot and Macdonald were defeated by Bernadotte and Blücher at Gross-Beeren and the Katzbach respectively, on the 23d and 25th of August, and Schwartzenberg, instead of waiting for the other armies, attacked the French centre at Dresden. On the 26th and 27th of August a terrible battle was fought, in which Moreau was mortally wounded. Napoleon was successful, but he suffered severe losses which he was unable to repair. Three days later he received the news that Vandamme’s army, which had penetrated into Bohemia to cut off Schwartzenberg’s communications, had been forced to capitulate at Kulm to the Russians under Barclay de Tolly. The battle of Dresden proved to the allies that it was impossible for one of their armies to overthrow Napoleon unassisted, and they therefore recurred to their original plan. Napoleon once more endeavoured to break from his defensive position and struck at Berlin; but Marshal Ney was defeated by Bernadotte and Bülow at Dennewitz, on 6th September, and he had to wait while the ring formed round him. The Emperor’s losses during the first part of this campaign had been immense. He had lost over 10,000 men by the capitulation of Kulm; his young soldiers had been decimated at the Katzbach and Dennewitz; and the troops of the German contingents deserted en masse. In fact when the operations of the allies were completed and their armies had concentrated around Leipzig, to which place he had withdrawn, he had not more than 160,000 men, whose confidence was shaken by repeated defeats, to oppose to more than double that number.

Treaty of Töplitz. 19th Sept. 1813.

Battle of Leipzig. 16th-19th October 1813.